Hardware
Tools
If you intend on owning and maintaining a compound bow, one essential tool that you must have in your arsenal is a set of Allen wrenches. Almost every attachment or piece of equipment is either held on or adjusted using one of these tools. For example, if you were attempting to fine tune your accuracy and needed to adjust the sight or one of the pins to account for inaccuracy, you would need a smaller Allen wrench to make the needed change.
Another key use for an Allen wrench on a compound bow is for the adjustment of the overall weight drawn back when the user is going to shoot. The difficulty of the bow being drawn is measured in pounds. The average adult compound bow can range anywhere in draw weight from 40 - 80 pounds, however, if needed, youth bows are capable of going as low as 10 - 15 pounds. In order to adjust the poundage of your compound bow, a bolt found at the top of the limbs must be adjusted and in order to do so an Allen wrench is needed. When making this change, don't forget to rotate the other bolt at the opposite end of the bow the same amount to keep the weight even.
Bowstring
One of the most important parts of your compound bow is the bowstring itself. Thus it is incredibly important to take proper care of it and do what is needed to achieve the best performance and have it last as long as it can. The simplest thing to do to maintain bowstring health is to apply wax to it. It is fairly cheap to purchase and is built like a wide glue stick for easier use. When applying, take the wax end of the stick and run it along the length of your string, up and down. Once completed take your fingers and rub it into the fibers of the string and be sure no chunks of wax remain.
If you begin to see fraying along your bow string or it feels rather dry, it is time to apply wax. At any given point, there should be a general level of tackiness to your string.
However, even with proper care, bowstrings tend to wear down naturally over time and do need replacing. In order to replace the string on a compound bow, a bow press is needed. depending on the style and brand, a bow press can be a bit more on the expensive side. Luckily, it is fairly common that local hunting or sporting good stores often offer services allowing their employees to change the bowstring for you.
Arrows
Arrows for traditional and compound bows are very similar to one another except for the fact that compound bows do not typically shoot wooden arrows. Most often, the arrows you will be using are either made out of aluminum alloy or carbon fiber. Often, you can find arrows that are made with differing weights, lengths and styles so you can find the one that best suits your needs. It is often recommended that 5 grains of arrow weight are needed for each pound of your bows draw weight. Shooting an arrow that is too light may cause damage to either the bow or the user operating it.
